Curse

Aussie Boy · Oct 01, 2007, 12:54 PM // 12:54

I agree with most of your post especially this part
"Guild Wars players are, in general, the least helpful and most reserved online gaming community"
There are still helpful people in Guild Wars you just have to search for them
but they are there in the shadows now but not as many as there once were.

Event's that you yourself hosted bring them out.

EternalTempest · Oct 01, 2007, 01:10 PM // 13:10

I disagree about needing the pve only skills or having to rely on consumables. I went through Eotn with either pug or Hero/hench, or with guildmates and my skill bar / majority of the skill bar was with pve (pvp legal skills). I see consumables as anets way "speeding" harder area's up.

I do agree that titles did introduce optional grind. Eotn is not meant to be a chapter, or campaign. It's a stuff to do while we wait for 2 years without any new content. That is the reason I feel they have the "grind" feel to it. The Norn/Asura/Dwarf/Ebonguard armor are all "prestige" armor.

I do agree about the community, I think the experiment to the report command is in response to this. I also think that hero's do more good then harm. I admit, I can hero/hench just about all 3 games now. The problem is before hero/hench there were already zones that you could not find enough players to get a pug at certain times, and it was just getting worse.

I do admit how Hall of Monuments and unlocks have made me focus on a single character only. But at the same time, doing HM Vanquisher/mapping (something I've never really done before) has proven to be very rewarding.

Croco Clouds · Oct 01, 2007, 01:11 PM // 13:11

yea, I remember more ppl PUG than hench a mission in faction. For example, 5 districts of Raisu Palace.

Friday · Oct 01, 2007, 01:22 PM // 13:22

hehe... LethalHands - I think we are saying the same thing in two different versions...

When it comes to "TEH COMMUNITY"... just -.-

And, yes, I suppose I should re-visit the end-game NF areas, but after having to struggle through it pre-NM-nerf with H&H, hating the LB point grind imposed by said "community", hating the snotty PUGS there, having to wait for Guildies to get there.... I just haven't bothered since.

On a side note:
GW is supposed to be a fun leisure activity, and when I find myself frustrated and angry - I give it a break... It's not keeping the roof over my head, it's not keeping food on the table, it's not a matter of real life and death, it's "supposed" to be "escapism". Which, if you are not out supporting yourself and still have your folks looking after your worldly needs, will mean nothing to you. Thats the part of "TEH COMMUNITY" that tries to impose it's elitism on the other part that play GW for what it was originally intended to be.

Meh, whatever...

And ,No, I was not referring to you LethalHands in the above paragraph

Fight Well
Friday

MarlinBackna · Oct 01, 2007, 01:37 PM // 13:37

I agree....with most of your post. I simply think we were all conned into buying the expansion when all of us really didn't need to (yet). The hype that was out there for the expansion was so high that it seemed awesome. The ranks for the most part were ok if you beat the game, did a couple dungeons, THEN started farming, but the impatient self that I am, I took roughly 8 hours to farm the vanguard points I needed (before I beat the game). However, near the end, I noticed I was already r3 in norn, asura, and dwarven. Not saying that I don't need to do grind, but not as much as vanguard. As I said, the hype for GWEN (and essentially GW2) was overstated. I almost rather that they released GWEN later if it meant better content. It is this hype that I am wary about GW2, but lucky for us there will be a free beta to test it out.

Brianna · Oct 01, 2007, 01:52 PM // 13:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wrath of m0o

Cry me a river...
You know how long it took me to grind/farm my FoW armor?
I just broke SIX THOUSAND hours and just recently purchased my second set of FoW armor. And no.. i dont buy online gold.. I farmed/traded every coin.
I think you can kill a few baddies for a week to get yours.

And as for the OP on Crappy reskinned armor...

Thank You Anet for not completly destroying a reason to get FoW armor.
I was a little dissapointed with some of the Nightfall armor, thinking it was really close to coming into competition with FoW.

This game suits multiple peoples playstyles...I have never played anygame as Complex and versitile a Guildwars, and i still consider it to be my favorite game.

Woah woah, hold up.

I've got 3 sets of FoW, and I farmed UW day in and day out for all of them, My account has 13,000 hours... most afk, but none the less. I am entitled my right to feel this way by all means, I have the legendary skill hunter title too (sure its not great but it took a lot of effort from me, so i like it).

creelie · Oct 01, 2007, 01:53 PM // 13:53

I dunno. There's all these titles and items you can get, but their effect is negligible and their cost in terms of time and money is huge, SO I JUST DON'T GET THEM.

In the interests of giving everyone something to do, GW has been made a little too big for one person to do everything. The vast majority of players - the casual ones that don't post on forums - are pretty happy with that. They don't expect to be able to do everything. Those of us who play extensively, on the other hand, eventually run out of activities designed in the original spirit of the game, and face an unrelieved grindfest in all directions.

We have a few options at this point. The first is to grind for things we don't really want. The second is to make new characters with drastically different playstyles and experience the game anew. The third is to join an active guild and play only to help other players. The fourth is to get into PvP, accepting that you're going to suck big time until you learn the ropes. The fifth . . . is to decide that you've pretty much done all you want to do in GW, and move on to something else.

I've cycled through these options 3 times: once when I got into GW just as Factions came out, once when Nightfall came out, and now again. I'm still in the "new characters" phase for EotN. (I should admit I've never stuck around in PvP long enough to be any good.)

EDIT: I forgot to add one other option - grinding for a few things we do really want. I am damn proud of my monk's Vabbian armor and Guardian of Tyria title. It might be nice to have Legendary Guardian and FoW armor with spectacles and chaos gloves, but for me the lure is not strong enough to face the hours required.

ParanoidDenny · Oct 01, 2007, 02:07 PM // 14:07

Totally brilliant post and replies to this thread and not one response from the ANET PR crew, says it all really.

Aye GW has changed since the first chapter and not for the better, to much grinding and to many nerfs have taken the fun out of the game, they (anet) want balance, errrrr fun=balance in my books.

No doubt like managers at any place of work they won't listen and they'll eventually burn.

Cold Hearted Zero · Oct 01, 2007, 02:07 PM // 14:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amorfati87

Guys...the grind is there yes, but you do not need to do it.

The rewards you get for topping out those titles are negligible, you do not need those rewards to play and be successful at the game. It is completely optional.

Didn't get the rainbow phoenix? It's meant to be a reward for people who attained a certain level. It's the same thing as FOW armor, it is a lot of work to obtain, should this also not be in the game because it's a punishment against people who don't want to work that hard for armor? Again, you don't need either thing to be successful at this game.

Rank 5 to get armor? Do you think that all armor should be available to you on the character creation page?

The good old days? When rangers were routinely shunned, when MM's were unwanted, when you'd be stuck for weeks at missions because henchies and Pugs just couldn't handle it. Where the holy trinity (Wammo/Monk/Ele) was deemed the "ONLY" professions worth playing. The good old days weren't always good, people tend to forget the bad things and just remember the good.

The game has held your attention for 2+years, is it really fair to expect it to hold your attention indefinately?

Anet never lied to us. The no grind you all refer to is about leveling your character. You do not need to grind to get to the highest level in the game. You do not need to grind to get a max weapon or max armor, there are collectors you can go to, there are drops you can use. Max armor can be purchased for less than 10k with zero grind.

Anet has always said they want you to play the way you want to, and it is not a game that you need to constantly play to be good at. You can leave for awhile, then come back and not really have lost anything.

Not really seeing the lies here...you still see em? Point em out, lets discuss...

Best post so far imo. gg

Coraline Jones · Oct 01, 2007, 02:18 PM // 14:18

The OP has many good points, and I agree with most of what he said. To be honest, the problem appears to be the game engine itself.

Originally, Guild Wars was designed to merge PvE players into the PvP community. This makes sense if you think about it, because if you think about it, the problem is the end-game content. There were a lot of players that asked, "Where do we go from here?"

If you think about it, if you have an extremely low-level cap, a handful of useful elite skills per profession, and more-or-less easy to obtain max armor and max damage weapons, then it makes you wonder just how do you define any achievement in a RPG. I don't think that World of Warcraft would be the same game if everybody could be Level 60 in only a few weeks, and getting Tier 5 armor only required you to go into a town and buying it for a ton of money.

The hope was that PvEers would just migrate into PvP and start playing in the competitive environment where nobody has a clear advantage from the get-go is extremely important. But it turned out the community went in the other direction and people that liked the PvE elements rarely wanted to do the PvP portions. Guild Wars: Factions, if you really look at the history of it, was a not-so-subtle method of trying to get PvEers into PvP by implementing casual PvP arenas like Fort Aspenwood, The Jade Quarry, and Alliance Battle. They even put in quests to basically escort you directly to several of those areas, and they made Faction have all kinds of effects for PvE play. Still, it didn't quite encourage PvE players to get into PvP as people had hoped. If anything, it sort of annoyed a lot of people.

Originally, Prophecies let you get a ton of money but you had almost nothing to buy. As a result, the "end-game" turned into hoarding rare and expensive armors and collecting weapons with rare skins. ANet picked up on this and they quickly turned a lot of the game into a serious farming game as a result. Titles just came afterwards and it was a huge success: People didn't really care that the titles didn't mean anything (at least, at first they didn't), but the idea that they somehow implied achievement was a huge psychological boost. Finally, ANet decided that grind was the way to go, so titles began to have positive effects in-game; this was all that anybody needed to go grind away for hours for a title.

I'm not sure if Guild Wars 2 is really going to go back to the "skill over time played" model for PvE. If anything, it sounds like ArenaNet is learning from their mistakes and realizing that PvE and PvP are separate things, and the two sides bicker frequently with each other. Also, it appears that while "player skill over time spent" is a great idea for PvP, that's not what the MMORPG community wants. I don't know of any other online RPG out there where key features include a low level cap and easily obtained max-damage weapons.

=====

One last thing: I don't understand all this complaining about consumables. If anything, consumables are only good in times where you screwed up and now there's so much DP spread throughout the team that you can't really kill the end boss anymore.

I've played in many PUGs, and the ones that kick off a consumable (like an Armor of Salvation) right away often do worse or no better than the ones that don't.

Consumables aren't blessings. They are more like maintained enchants that can't be stripped by enemies. As a result, if you die, then the effects immediately disappear anyway, with the sole exception of the ones that affect your Death Penalty/Morale Boost. So if you act reckless, have a lousy build, or have no teamwork, then no consumable is going to prevent you from dying again in the next five minutes anyway.

As a result, if ANet wants to use put them in game, fine. Anybody that wants to waste 250gp + materials on an item that can only be used one time, and the effects expire on player death or a zone... well, who cares?

Tijger · Oct 01, 2007, 02:30 PM // 14:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shanaeri Rynale

One thing is for sure, I very much think GW1 will be abandoned by a lot of people by the time Gw2 is nears release.

By that time GW1 will be at least 3 years old, if it stays around with decent numbers of players until then I'd say Anet has done a great job, wouldnt you say?

Every game goes to 'game heaven' sooner or later, its neither wrong nor in any way odd and 3 years nowadays for a game is a very very long time, most games can only wish they can hold their players for that long.
I for one can only point to GW as a game I played 2 years ago that I still play today.

Has it changed? Sure, quite a bit even, some things they've added have failed, others have been great just like the 'original' game has strengths and shortcomings but all in all I think its been a great ride and for me it definitely hasnt ended yet.

Anyone who has had enough, fair enough, although I do feel there's too much "Anet ruined X, I quit!" around nowadays, almost all of the 'big' complaints are either minor, non-issues (like having to farm for points) or highly personal play style issues imho.

Aera Lure · Oct 01, 2007, 03:06 PM // 15:06

Great topic. Thanks Sojar. You've about summed it up generally for me, but rather than quote you, I'll quote a few replies that rung true for what I've felt and experienced, and where I am at with the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by creelie

We have a few options at this point. The first is to grind for things we don't really want. The second is to make new characters with drastically different playstyles and experience the game anew. The third is to join an active guild and play only to help other players. The fourth is to get into PvP, accepting that you're going to suck big time until you learn the ropes. The fifth . . . is to decide that you've pretty much done all you want to do in GW, and move on to something else.

I've been through this three times now myself, each time retiring for some months, coming back to play the game from a different angle. The first time I retired I had tired of the first approach, pursuing the accumulation of wealth for all these things I desired. When I returned a couple months after Factions came out I returned to my roots and simply played multiple characters through Factions and loved it, but:

Quote:

Originally Posted by arcanemacabre

Still, it is fun playing GW with my wife, and the occasional get-together with friends, but alone? Hell no. The grind really shows itself when you play alone. At least it does to me. I start to feel like there is this "To Do" list: go cap these skills, try this build, farm this green, do these dungeons, grind these titles, uncover these areas of the map, etc. I just find it really hard to just "do stuff" for the fun of it unless there is someone else to enjoy it with me and discuss things.

This is what did me in and I retired for the second time. Too many characters and not much to do in the end game but pursue titles, which was fine, until I began to feel too much like arcanemacabre says above. I simply didnt wish to log in anymore as it felt like a chore to do anything in game.

I returned a couple months after Nightfall having decided to retire all my characters except my monk. I had already started to play this way just before I retired the second time. Felt like fun to play again but:

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHunterX

I absolutely hate that I have been reduced to playing only my Warrior character simply because so many titles that affect PvE are character based only, instead of account based, and I refuse to go out and re-grind areas 5 more times.

I more and more began to get a bit bitter about feeling like I was forced to retire all my other characters. Its not true, of course, I had the option, but it was far too much unnecessary work for me to play more than one character, so they all became storage mules sadly, and they all got quickly too full to play them even if I wanted to. Certainly not bitter about that anymore, but still a bit sad. It took away some of the variety from the game.

Still, I was back and having fun with heroes. My previous beloved guild I was in since the beginning of the game had more or less closed. Spent my time largely playing alone with heroes until I met another player, the leader of my current guild, and we went through and completed Legendary Guardian, which I had started trying to do on my own. Some of the best times I have had in Guild Wars, at least since Factions' peak and Prophecies. The problem for me is:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Etta

As for the communities, let face it, it's getting worst all the time. Most of the old players are just staying in the close circle of guilds and alliances, again I don't see anything wrong with that.

It just got boring. It moved from tedious with the multiple characters and titles to boring. Play became hero-centric. Even in a guild it was a struggle to find someone working on the same things as you, then you both went out with your heroes and did whatever that was. The fun associated with that lasted for a good amount of time, but heroes are more or less predictable. It became a tactical game.

It was additionally tedious now that heroes were not account based as well as titles. While I feel heroes are the cause of major change, at least in part, I do not want to invoke a discussion of heroes specifically in this topic, because:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Friday

The PUG is dead and that is just a simple truth. The pug died when the designer's got lazy and increased the difficulty levels by simply ramping up a mobs health bar and damage output, by simply ramping up the sheer numbers of foes in a mob, by simply adding environmental effects that punished certain classes, by simply creating endgame/elite areas that were only completable in a reasonable time by a cookie cutter class and team build. That is the death of the pug - it was the end of any acceptance of any form of skill bar experimentation, it ended the formation of pugs to play an area just for the sheer fun of it because of the time it takes for non-cookie-cutter teams to get thru, it created the class rejection we see in most areas, it simply just destroyed the social community fun of PUGGING!! And yes, There is only one set of shoulders that that can be laid on.

There are many reasons PUGs and more social play died. Whatever the reasons, that fact was the nail in the coffin for me. Do I want to log in and gather up heroes, see if a friend is on, and then gather up henchmen if not and go to work on more titles? No, not so much. Especially when its all I do and have no reason to do anything else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Croco Clouds

yea, I remember more ppl PUG than hench a mission in faction. For example, 5 districts of Raisu Palace.

I'd love to log on and join PUGs as in the height of Factions and Prophecies prior and simply help groups through any random thing, play random missions, normal mode or hard. Those days are gone though. I completed Protector titles on all my characters in Factions (and a few went back and did it in Prophecies as well) simply through PUG play with very little trouble. Some repeat missions sure, a few I did myself, but it was largely PUGs and greatly successful. TONS of fun. PUGs going around now are a ghost of days past.

Quote:

Originally Posted by trielementz

You know what's sad? The CMs have previously stated that they believe only the dissatisfied will post in forums, not those who are happily playing. As such, all such threads are to be weighed very very very cautiously.

However, I see no other way of letting them know how many players are disappointed with the direction Guild Wars is heading towards. We can't let our money do the talking since there's no subscription fee. We continue to purchase the expansion based on the belief that things will be better. We continue to play because we're attached to the game still. There is practically no other way for us to demonstrate our discontent, other than post in forums.

I wonder if threads like this will ever go anywhere, instead of simply registering an insignificant blip on some ANet employee's radar.

Probably true. I hope they view this topic as healthy criticism and not useless irrelevant whining. Most if not all posters in this topic love this game I am sure, and I know a few of them.

**cosyfiep** · Oct 01, 2007, 03:22 PM // 15:22

OP you hit it on the nose!

as an 'old timer', but not 'since beta' player (and yes unemployed housewife

and yes my hubby plays as well, just not as much). I enjoyed most of the game up to nightfall. I have lots of characters (5 tyrian, 5 canthan and 3 elonian I am playing still) and have spent 4000+ hours playing them, however; when nf came out I became discouraged---not sure if it was the longer starter isle (factions' one seemed to short, nf's too long) or the addition of the grind for titles (or the nerf of my paragon). I am still working some of my characters thru nf and running them back thru the other 2 chapters as well, however; with the addition of eye I dont think they will all go there---I hate grinding (only one has gotten level 5 of any of the new titles for armor and that took me about 7 hours of grinding after completing all the quests)...its mind numbing! After the initial 'WOW newness' of gwen wore off (about 2 hours) I became bored....I have gotten only 4 characters into it and dont feel like finishing it at all (one has the last 3 quest/missions to do). Not sure why, though I am sure grind is part of it (and another maybe the rehash of dungeons etc). But since there will not be any new chapters for gw I feel that I have plenty of time to complete what I want to with each toon (some are title mongers while others are not, others are armor hogs some have only the set on their backs). I feel no rush to finish eye, not even a bit to complete it once.

I will not be getting gw2 for many reasons, and anet already has my moneys from gw so they have no reason to even look my way or listen to my opinions any longer. I feel that not much will be done to save gw, and I hope anet can keep its stuff together long enough to even get gw2 up and running! (and keep the servers for gw up and running so I can play what I want to when I want).

LONGA · Oct 01, 2007, 03:38 PM // 15:38

Compare this game with others game I played with so far.This is the online game that have the 2nd longest playtime. The 1st was half-life 1 and mods that come around later which I quited after hacks are around.

I like this game because of the grind is not required.And it still just like that after a year and a half for me.I viewed those title based benefit as a bonus not the core of this game but with people who concern with it,This make the game unhealthy.Agree that make all title account based would reduce those concern.

I still enjoy Fort Aspenwood due to randomness nature of this misson(excpet,leech and grief).And find that Factions is the best chapters that merge PvP play style with PvE very well if players have the interest to go through contents.

Coraline Jones · Oct 01, 2007, 03:59 PM // 15:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amorfati87

Rank 5 to get armor? Do you think that all armor should be available to you on the character creation page?

I wish that people would stop using the "well, special armor shouldn't be given to everybody" argument. From what I can tell, the three things that have annoyed fans about the armor system in Eye of the North are:

1) Grinding for a reputation title so you can buy armor is almost the same as doing raids in WoW for a chance at getting some rare gear. You're using a repetitive action as a gate to some premium loot. But for some reason, GW fans tolerate it despite that WoW players list it as a weakness in the system.

2) No other area in the game requires you to get a certain rank in any title to buy an armor. You complete the quest chains, then get to a specific location, and finally you just buy it. The cost and materials are the gates.

3) Even if you ignore the first two things, the armor in Eye of the North isn't even that special in the first place, and I think that makes people the most upset of them all. Even better, the most desired pieces, like the rare gloves or unique headgear, can't be added to Hall of Monuments anyway.

Quote:

The good old days? When rangers were routinely shunned, when MM's were unwanted, when you'd be stuck for weeks at missions because henchies and Pugs just couldn't handle it. Where the holy trinity (Wammo/Monk/Ele) was deemed the "ONLY" professions worth playing. The good old days weren't always good, people tend to forget the bad things and just remember the good.

First of all, I'd like to know how anybody could be "stuck" at any mission in Prophecies. A character can just grind out levels, and then with a little practice and a little strategy, you can beat virtually any mission or primary quest using nothing but henchmen. You may not get the BONUS objective, but you weren't talking about bonus objectives. All you really need is a monk secondary so you can Rebirth any fallen allies, and you can keep going. The only one that will give you trouble is Thunderhead Keep because the mobs can overwhelm your group if you're not smart. Still, I found random PUGs that could do the mission, and it wasn't like I was stuck there for "weeks".

Back to your other argument... You're just talking about the metagame and you can't complain about how a metagame works.

Yes, in the beginning, the "holy trinity" (which still works even today, actually) is Tank, Nuker, and Healer. Nobody could get into any other group because what else did you need? Everybody overlooked the support professions, not realizing that in Guild Wars, the support professions tend to be the most overpowered when used right.

It took several weeks before people figured out just how insanely powerful mesmers were. In the first release of Guild Wars, mesmers were the masters of e-denial, but nobody knew how to play them. They could shut down any caster, anywhere. Even boss monsters could just run out of energy with a mesmer locked on them and they would be rendered helpless. Once people figured this out, this metagame got shutdown so fast. It wasn't so much from the PvE side (as they still had a lot of stigma, as they can "only" attack one target), but because it was destroying PvP.

Later, somebody finally figured out that minion masters could just crush anybody in the game. With infinite minions and tons of energy from Soul Reaping, you could just punish so much of the game with a necromancer. It was around this time when ANet changed the game so minions got limited to 10. The Soul Reaping fix wasn't until much later, after people were exploiting them with Ritualists.

This trend has continued even more recently--that is, ignoring support characters over "less complicated" professions. In Factions, people disliked the Ritualist and many people played with the Assassin. In Nightfall, people ignored the Paragon and looked at the Dervish. Ritualists and Paragons were designed to be support characters, and who wants to play that? Then somebody figured out that Ritualists could spirit spam and Paragons could use non-stop shouts, and both cases made the whole team virtually invulnerable. It took weeks for this metagame to appear, and soon everybody was going crazy with these builds in PvP. That's how the Ritualists and Paragons got nerfed.

Fox Reeveheart · Oct 01, 2007, 04:00 PM // 16:00

I been feeling less inclined to play lately.

Everything requires grind nowadays if you want something nice.

Anet screwed us over on the chests at the beginning of GW:EN, oh how many lockpicks I used and was furious about the incredibly horrible drops. Why are we facing level 28 foes and the chests drop something for an area with something that have foes in the mid teens? They should just add the darn 600 gold keys because that is how much they are worth.

Yeah sure some of you it only took 2 hours to farm.... took me an entire week. You think I liked it? HECK NO! Doing snowman's over and over again for dwarven armor is a pain... and the set isn't even complete and you can't put it into HoM! Some people say anet wanted armor mix-n-match but you COULD ALREADY DO THAT ANYWAYS!

PvP is a dream unless you have a good computer. On my comp it the game many times will be 30-50 seconds already started into a match by the time everything loads and by that time we are already dead. So if you have a lower end computer, pvp isn't for you. This is why after 2.5 years of playing guild wars I have 4 fame and never won HoH.

I'm just so so tired of GW now... the only reason I play it now is to hang out with this girl I used to date but still love her dearly >.O good girls that like gaming are hard to find around where i live.

*Darcy* · Oct 01, 2007, 04:01 PM // 16:01

@OP - comparing player friendliness between a game with 4M owners and a beta is apples and oranges. The community during GW beta was friendlier, I'm sure.

As to the grind for the EOTN armor, that prevents richer players from being the first to get the armor. The rank requirement means that you have to put in some game time instead of just flashing a big gold account.

Lord Sojar · Oct 01, 2007, 04:10 PM // 16:10

It is not simply the grind that is bothersome. Nor is it just the community. It is lack of effort on Arena Net's part to fix the broken mechanics of the game.

Eye of the North was not received well for many reasons. However, one of the biggest issues seems to be a rehash of various things. The dungeons typically have the SAME rooms, despite being totally different locales. Granted, this probably saved the development team a lot of time, but I am not paying 40 USD to save them any time, I am paying that money to make them work long hard hours to make the game worth that money. The reskinned armors are another great example of this.

What this comes to be seen as is "Milking the series" Arena Net figures they can cut a lot of corners and satisfy 75% of the fanbase with these, to put it bluntly "half assed" creations and still get 95% of their player base to buy the product. The PvE skills are oh so tempting to have, and all the story line that it was supposed to sum up and all the questions it was supposed to answer. Is it just me, or did the Eye of the North story line really not answer that many of our questions? For God's sake, they showed a tree and said "Birth of the Sylvari".... ummm, ok... Essentially, Eye of the North can be summed up with one word, "Laziness."

The fact that Arena Net could so betray their fanbase and release a FINAL expansion that consist of 50% reskins and reused content is appalling, and is quite the low blow to the players that have supported their efforts these past years. To actually believe that a company that claims to be devoted to its fanbase and to really care about their game would do such a thing is disgusting. Everyone is mad at Arena Net for this and that, but no one seems to be mad at them for the broadest picture... a slap in the face to the players they originally promised would have a game to call their own free of grind to increase skill effectiveness and grind to make your character more powerful then another.

While some of you argue that the grind is not required, I assure you it is. It may not be required to continue in the story line, but it is required to enjoy 100% of the content being offered. And with EotN having so little content for its rather large price tag of 40 USD, I would expect all of the content to be accessible to ALL. There is enough grind associated with acquiring the materials and gold needed to craft armor; adding a r5 requirement PER FACTION is over the top and displaces the scales in favor of Time>Skill, away from the original founding principle of the game.

Shame on Arena Net for charging 40 USD for an "expansion" that required little development and setup a system designed to keep players "amused" until Guild Wars 2 can come save the day. The REAL reason Guild Wars 2 is coming out, and people need to face up to this, is because Arena Net knows how much they failed with Guild Wars 1 at this point. They saw how they were restricted by their own design, how their design was fundamentally flawed. The game engine doesn't allow for better trading methods, it doesn't allow for this and that... but it does allow for innovation. Somewhere along the lines, Arena Net forgot that, and innovation went the same path as Guild Wars 1 has... into a tedious grind. Arena Net found being innovative to be a grind for their minds, when they could simply reuse areas of the other games that were successful and make more money. The dollar signs clouded their judgment so much, but knowing they needed to hold their player base, they created the grind machine for their "adored" fans.

So here we are, today, with our beloved Guild Wars. The balance of the game still hanging by a thread, lots of added grind for meaningless rewards that everyone feels they need to have, and more vanity. To what end? Guild Wars 2? I didn't invest in Guild Wars 2, I invested in the idea of Guild Wars 1 and a little company named Arena Net who had a new view for the gaming industry... a new vision, a refreshing creative objective from the mundane grindfest that all other MMOs had ever been. And 2 years later, that little company I once came to care about like it was my own has grown up, only to say "Hey dad, I am adult now, I don't need you anymore." How betrayed do I feel by the company I put my trust into? Where is that feeling of loyalty between Arena Net and the player? It has all but faded as the winds of the Crystal Desert blow innovation into oblivion.

Jebus · Oct 01, 2007, 04:12 PM // 16:12

Very good post, exactly my thoughts.

Steboy93 · Oct 01, 2007, 04:33 PM // 16:33

This is a very good post, it sums up the thought of lots of players. I can't agree more about 'The birth of the Syvari', they showed us a tree for 5 seconds, I wouldn't of even knew what that was unless I had read around on sites.